Kathy wrote:
I am an inexperienced lady trying to put the rain drain system in myself.
We are having a log home built. It is on a slope in the northwest so we
get plenty of rain. There is a daylight basement and the builder did put
in a french drain all the way around the house and then he back filled. I
dug down to the footings on the daylight side of the house but as the
gound sloped up I was about 18" deep on the filled side. My question: is
that deep enough to put my 3" drain pipe down? Do I connect it to the
french drain? Any other advice? Kathy

Kathy the digger

Your downspouts generate thousands of gallons of water. Don't dump
this into the drainage system for your foundation. It's asking for
problems now or down the road.

Instead, have your downspouts drain into underground drain pipe that
leads to a safe area far away from the foundation of your house. The
best system is to have the drain pipe go to daylight if you have a
sufficient grade drop. If not, you can use a pop-up emitters with a
seepage system (hole in bottom of pipe, pipe surrounded by gravel and
geotextile fabric). That way, left over water eventually drains and
prevents your drain pipes from breaking during a hard freeze.